14 Self Help tips for 2014

As we welcome in the New Year, many of us will be setting goals as to what we hope to achieve in the coming months. These may be drastic, life-altering aims or just a few changes that will make you feel a great deal better about yourself, but however you go about it, the New Year is definitely a time for optimism.

So in a bid to help you on your way to achieving those things that we all strive for in 2014, here are some great tips.

Write Your Goals Down

Making goals in your head is all well and good but you are much more likely to stick to these if you make a proper record of them. This also means that you can track your progress and look back on how well you have done at the end of the year. It helps to create a life handbook which details everything you aim to achieve, when you want to achieve it and how you are going to go about doing this.

Replace Bad Habits With Good Ones

Quitting a bad habit is never easy, but you may find it that bit more painless if you can replace it with something good. Try trading your smoking for regular exercise, your over-eating for an unhealthy obsession with books and your nail biting for mail writing.

Have Fun

This is surely the easiest thing on this list to do. With everything that goes on in our busy lives we often find it hard to find time for ourselves. Having fun isn’t about spending large amounts of money you can’t afford, it’s about spending time with the people you love and getting to know yourself more.

Get Some Sleep

As you get older you learn to appreciate sleep more and more, but few of us get as much as we need. Sleep provides a valuable function in our lives and it’s amazing how much of a difference a full night’s sleep can make to your mood and productivity.

Overcome Your Fears

We all have fears, some bigger than others, but the good news is that they are all curable. The only fears we are born with are the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises, everything else is learned and can be just as easily unlearned.

Take More Risks

Our brains are programmed to avoid risk at all cost. We subconsciously choose the option that has the greatest likelihood of success and avoid anything that could end badly. It’s time to re-wire your thinking though and add some exhilaration to your life by taking the harder option on the odd occasion.

Learn Something New

After we finish education, we rarely get the chance to learn anything new in our lives. However, the opportunities are still there, they just don’t come as easily as they used to. Consider taking a few courses to broaden your outlook. Start with one in NLP, like this one, in order to learn more about how to make 2014 your best year yet.

Smokers: Give Yourself A Reason To Quit

Many people attempt to give up smoking every year, but not all of them reach their goal. You are much more likely to complete the process is you give yourself a tangible reason to stop. If it’s to save money then physically save the money you would have spent in a jar and if it’s for health reasons then track your progress every step of the way.

Drink More Water

Never underestimate the power of water. For non-professional athletes it has been proven to do just as much as the leading energy drinks do and it also helps with hydration, keeping your skin clear and keeping your alert throughout the day.

Control The Controllables And Forget About The Rest

There are some things in life that you can change and there are some things that you can’t and so if you learn to accept this then you are likely to be a lot happier in life. Never stop striving to change the things you can control but attempting to change everything else will just cause unnecessary stress.

Limit Procrastination

Procrastination is the enemy of productivity and it has had its wicked way with all of us at some point. Distractions will only slow you down and putting something off to tomorrow is never going to get you to where you want to be.

Re-establish Contact With Old Friends

As we get older we tend to lose contact with the people we were friends with from a younger age. Re-connecting with these people can help you to revert back to your youth and give you a much needed boost. These people are often our closest route to the past and will know you better than anyone else.

Work On Your Negative Traits

We all have personal traits that we don’t particularly like. Some of us may struggle to compromise, some may be too quick to judge, but this doesn’t have to be who you are. If you are serious about becoming a better ‘you’ then these traits are the best place to start.

Be Kind To Others

Helping other people is the best way to boost your own self-confidence. Random acts of kindness make the world a better place, so start 2014 by putting a smile on someone else’s face and watch one appear on yours.

Mayhew is looking forward to a very prosperous 2014 and is hoping to make some big changes in his life. He would recommend NLP courses from The Performance Partnership to anyone wanting to do the same.